Girls allowed? The women on top in the music industry

After Sinead O'Connor's open letter of concern to Miley Cyrus, sexism in the music business has never been more discussed. But what do the women behind the scenes, from video directors to artist managers, think?

It's been a giddy few months for women in pop. If you haven't been living in a cave, you may have heard about Miley Cyrus swinging naked on a wrecking ball, and Sinéad O'Connor's subsequent open letter to the former child star. "The music business doesn't give a shit about you," O'Connor wrote. "They will prostitute you for all you are worth."

Another former child star reacted to the Miley/Sinéad saga later – Charlotte Church, in an hour-long Peel lecture for 6 Music. The male-dominated music business had "a juvenile perspective on gender", she railed, before slamming how acceptable this state had become. She added: "the culture of demeaning women in pop music is so ingrained as to have become routine, from the way we are dealt with by management and labels, to the way we are presented to the public."

But behind the scenes on Planet Pop, women also work. They're in the minority, as Church acknowledged, but they also direct videos, produce records and develop artists' careers. Director Diane Martel may have defended her video for Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines – topless girls were in a "power position", she said, if they stared at a camera while strutting near fully clothed men – but many other female voices haven't been heard, until now.

As a journalist who has encountered some sexism in her own career (being directed to put more shoes and less debate in my feminist pop culture site, the Lipster, by our funders – that was fun), my conversations with these women were as fascinating as they were complex. Many praised Church's lecture, but also acknowledged how huge and knotty her subject was; several emailed me later to clarify their positions. Any decent discussion of these issues is always difficult, I find, because women always know the criticisms and awkward questions that inevitably crop up. Hasn't sex sold records for ever? Aren't you prudish if you say women shouldn't express themselves sexually? Are women being exploited by others or happily exploiting themselves? There aren't easy answers, either.

I do know one thing, however. A year ago, I wrote a piece for the Quietus about my experience of the Rihanna marketing machine, noting that her career success was being measured not only by her sales, but by Twitter followers and video views. Similarly, this July, Miley Cyrus was delighted to get 306,000 tweets a minute during her notorious "twerking" performance with Robin Thicke at the VMAs – and didn't seem to mind that many of them were negative. YouTube views count towards chart placings in America, and influence UK radio playlists these days, so mainstream pop's economy is driven by one thing: hits and clicks.

The irony of this feature adding to that whirlwind is not lost on me. Neither is the fact that by focusing on the perils of lowest-common-denominator sexism, we're ignoring the commercially successful pop women who avoid them (Emeli Sandé and Taylor Swift have outsold Rihanna this year, for example). There are other glimmers of hope in the conversations that follow too. Only by bringing different women into the mix who have had valid experiences can we broaden this debate, and lessen that juvenile perspective after all.

MAIREAD NASH

Mairead Nash: 'It infuriated me that if women hung out with musicians, they were groupies.' Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Observer

Manager of Florence and the Machine since day one, after discovering Florence Welch singing in a toilet in a nightclub, and founder of Luvluvluv Records. Formerly half of female DJ duo Queens of Noize, who had an MTV show and made a single in which the girls deliberately dressed like boys in the video.

My company is pretty much all women. I didn't do that on purpose, but we do feel more powerful as a troupe. Maybe I did do it subconsciously, because the industry's so male-dominated.

I got involved with music young. It infuriated me that men were allowed to hang out with musicians, but if women did, they were groupies. I used to say if you worked at a dentists, you'd hang out with other people from there, wouldn't you?

The backlash against us turned nasty, though, and I ended up leaving the country. I had to rethink what I wanted to do in the industry, how I wanted to be a part of it.

I've worked with Florence from the beginning and, like us, she will not compromise. On big TV shows, if someone says to her: "You've got to dress sexy for this", she'll go: "Right, then, give me the black bin bag." I thought her Brits dress [a long peach gown with sheer panels] was amazing, though, and a great compromise. It also irritates me if you do anything as a woman, you've got to say why. If Florence collaborates with a writer, she's got to justify it. If a man does, he doesn't.

I think the traditional music industry collapsing – in terms of how the digital world has changed it – has been a good thing for women, though. If you can make something work and come up with a good idea, you can own it. It's almost like punk again... you can make up your own rules. Plus, there are more women coming through now who don't conform, like Lorde, who's fantastic. Despite everything, I can only see it getting better.

DAWN SHADFORTH

Dawn Shadforth: 'I'd feel very uncomfortable with girls wearing thongs dancing around a man.' Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Observer

Award-winning music video director who has directed videos for Kylie, Oasis and Florence and the Machine. In 2000/2001, she directed and edited Kylie's Spinning Around and Can't Get You Out of My Head videos, which were widely considered to have reignited her career worldwide.

When I went to art school, there was an expectation that if you were a woman you had to make work about your gender, while men were free to express themselves how they pleased. I felt that was unfair. I have always carried around a little feminist art tutor on my shoulder, though. Now I am older, I listen to that voice more.

Probably the two sexiest videos I have made were for Kylie. When I edited the video for Can't Get You Out of My Head, there were more risqué shots where the suit was more revealing, so I cut them out. Also, I very clearly remember Kylie and I sitting in my grotty little flat in Brixton, deciding whether to put the close-up shot of her bum into Spinning Around. Kylie looked at me and said: "What do you think about that shot, Dawn?" I probably said I liked it, and it stayed in without me considering its wider sociopolitical implications. I never said: "Let's film her arse now" though – when she swung into frame, there was just this beautiful floating bum. Plus, the real sexiness of Kylie's performance comes because she just is sexy.

More recently, however, I've been booked on jobs where they want things to be sexy. I was recently shown a picture of girls wearing thong swimsuits by a manager as a styling suggestion, but I didn't style it like that because I'd feel very uncomfortable with girls wearing thongs dancing around a man. The dancers all thanked me for dressing them in big knickers too.

I was also making a video recently for a very talented, ballsy girl, who at 20 wrote a global No 1 hit for another band. She wanted to dress in a way that was punky and fierce, but there was a push from the label boss for her to wear a low-cut top, show her breasts, and be less "scary". That male executive tried to use my influence as a woman to influence her – it's the first time anyone has said anything like that to me. I told them where to go.

What bothers me now more than anything is that big artists are very straight in terms of their sexuality., perhaps with the exception of Lady Gaga. Men have to be cool and hardass, which is repressive too; they couldn't dry hump a guitar like Prince today, or get naked like D'Angelo did in 2006. The glamorisation of female victims is also everywhere, in videos such as Rihanna's Pour It Up, but also ones by Drake and the Weeknd. It's like we have gone back to film noir times, where voracious sexual women are punished and die, rather than have fun like Madonna did.

The pressure today is to make your video rise to the top among all this stuff. As a result, the music industry is more risk-averse, going for shock tactics, the lowest common denominator. Very simply, it's market forces in operation.

ADRIENNE AIKEN

Adrienne Aiken: 'When I meet new people in the music industry, they assume I'm a singer.' Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Observer

Only female director of the Music Producers Guild, where less than 4% of listed producers are women. Producer and engineer for more than 30 years, making records and music for TV.

Whenever I meet new people in the music industry, they assume I'm a singer or artist-manager. It gets annoying, but then again, that's just statistics. There aren't many female producers, but women have qualities that are very suitable for the job. As child-bearers, we're supposed to have compassion – not that I'm saying men don't – but "feminine" qualities of empathy and sensitivity are very useful around artists.

I've only experienced direct prejudice once, working on a co-production with a guy who didn't show for most of the sessions. The guy commissioning the job knew I was doing all the work, but at a meeting later on that everyone attended, he wouldn't even look at me and only talked to my male partner – saying he was happy for the other guy to carry on doing his work! So I said fine and walked out, shaking with anger. I also find if there's a problem at any level in the music industry, and there's a woman behind it, then it's mentioned. It's not mentioned so much the other way.

When I'm producing female artists, I don't tell them not to cross lines. If they are a sexual person trying to get that out in their music, I draw that out. I don't agree with the overtness of some artists today, but that makes me sound old – every generation has its Elvis, after all!

What is wrong to me is that younger artists, appealing to an even younger audience, are being overt sexually before they know what it all means... but equally, how could you stop kids watching this stuff? You'd have to go all big brother with retina or fingerprint scans! The only way to moderate what is fed to new generations is to moderate what is delivered, and that responsibility needs to come from the labels.

AMY MORGAN

Amy Morgan: 'The problems I've faced have always been at the mainstream pop end of the industry.'

Talent scout for Island Records at university, then worked in A&R/publishing for Island, Zomba, V2 and Cooperative Music in her early 20s. Now a creative director at Beggars Music since 2009, working with Cat Power, Warpaint and US rapper Kitty.

When I've faced problems in the industry because I'm a woman, it's always been at the mainstream pop end. I dipped my toe in there, and it was awful, a real boys' club. Being a 21-year-old girl in a company signing 21-year-old girls who never have any clothes on... I sat in rooms thinking, if they're talking that way about them, what must they be thinking about me?

Young A&R guys are also taken more seriously than women because there's this weird tradition where knowledge of music has always been considered quite male.

The real problem is that there aren't enough women high up in the industry, because it's a very unfriendly place to be an older woman. It's quite hard to have children, for instance, because of the nature of the job, and the industry is also obsessed by younger women.

But the music industry is also only a mirror to bigger social problems. All it's doing is producing cultural products that people want to buy, whether that's the Chris Brown and Rihanna thing, which horrified me, or the Robin Thicke video, which will have been brainstormed and worked out from a formula – they'll have got the influences from how people are, how people are dancing on dancefloors. And all Miley Cyrus is doing, even if it was her decision, is being reflective of a wider sense where to be successful as a young woman she has to take all her clothes off and lick a hammer.

I feel as frustrated about this as everybody else, and that's why I've chosen to have my career in the independent sector. Without women in more positions of power everywhere, beyond this industry, it's not going to change.

LISA PAULON

Lisa Paulon: 'The old boys' clubs are being torn apart.' Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Observer

PR/marketing director who began her career working for indie labels Wax Trax, Caroline and Sub Pop. Joined Polydor/Universal in 1997, helping launch Queens of the Stone Age, Ian Brown and the Cardigans. Director of own marketing company Traffic since 2001, and director of Camden Crawl festival since 2005.

My original ambition was to be a major record company director, but it took me a long time to realise that that was never going to happen. Why? Because you have to modify your behaviour – essentially, you had to behave as one of the lads to progress.

Working in PR and marketing with the Cardigans taught me a few lessons, though. Nina [Persson, the singer] is a bright woman, and she was going for a sexy biker chick look at the end of the 90s. We did a shoot for Loaded, and she did go topless, but they said it was going to be shot artily, in black and white, really cool. It ended up looking disgusting, so we actually stopped those photos coming out. That's a rare positive example of an artist not being sold down the road, but you have to have the strength to do that.

There are so many artists that major labels know they can't sell just through their music, so they try and create a stronger hook. Heavy rock and metal artists are made more angry and shocking, for example, but there isn't a female equivalent of Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson, where the imagery is aggressive rather than sexualised.

With Camden Crawl, our booking committee is very mixed, male-to-female, and my experience working on it has been so positive. It's also funny how people look differently – and positively! – at women when they're working independently from a big company, as I have done since 2001. You're not a cog any more. The music industry is becoming more mixed too. Five years ago, there were no female agents, but now about 50% of the people I'm dealing with are women. It gives me faith that the old boys' clubs are being torn apart.

ALISON HOWE

Former John Peel producer, now series producer of Later... with Jools Holland. Also executive producer of Glastonbury coverage.

I don't have any advertisers, sponsors or shareholders to deal with at Later, so I'm quite lucky. I haven't had any issues because of my sex either, but that might be because I don't work in the music industry – I work in broadcasting.

I don't book artists because of their gender, but I do try and get a good mix. I would never refuse to book an artist because of the way she presents herself, though. I mean, I'd love Lady Gaga on Later, and whatever she wore would be entirely up to her.

As for the sexualisation of women today, I don't think it's a million miles away from what Madonna was doing. The difference now is that kids can watch these clips endlessly, which only 10 years ago just didn't happen. But equally, they might watch an Adele performance, and that might make a mark. As long as they've a choice of things to take in and talk about, then that's fine. If they start to feel they've got to be provocative to get on, that will be a sad day.